What’s Aged the Best?
The film's specific post-Enron, pre-financial-crisis moment of lots of money and lots of paranoia
In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:06Read transcript
- Candidates offered: Clooney's stubble, the unadulterated footage of Clooney chilling in cabs or in his Mercedes, flip phones, or the Trump-era vibe of complicity within a corrupted system; the three of them nostalgically look back at the days of being reachable only by flip phone.
- This capsule of movies is associated with Bush-era cynicism and total Chris Cooper vibes, the first time one participant started really watching dad movies about talkers and players; the janitor sequence is Michael Clayton shrugging off the magic of lawyerdom.
- A timeless post-9/11 cynicism about how soul-crushing systems are not magic and are moved through by money rather than hyper-competence; the film makes sure you understand Clooney is not the best to have ever done anything, just a man who put himself in the service of the right people, who only sounds ineffectual once he stops representing those interests, left with his $80,000 and his dead friend Arthur.
- All of the above: a shout-out to the script supervisor for the continuity of the levels of stubble, from five o'clock shadow to several days unshaven, across the four-days-ago flash structure; an all-time great flip phone movie that made the speaker want to go back to a Motorola, because if Clooney can take down U North without an iPhone there is no need to tweet; and the grainy flip phone photo of Karen at the end ('I gotcha'). — Lindsay Zoladz
- One of the last great American thrillers pre-iPhone: scenes would be plotted differently with a smartphone, since so much of the film is having to go see people, and Arthur could have been found more easily by text, although a man really hiding should not walk around with a conspicuous bouquet of a dozen baguettes; the mood is post-Enron but pre-financial-crisis Bush era, with a whole whistleblower vibe, and since those themes are unfortunately current again the film has aged impressively against other Bush-era movies.
- Wondering whether they would feel the same doing the podcast again in 2028, the dialogue and jargon are singled out first despite being rooted in a changing industry, along with the law-firm environment: a wake for Arthur would still be in the bar where Barry and Marty hug at the end, and Marty Bach would still be in his Long Island home with his dress shirt untucked going through files; the award then goes to the use of that specific post-Enron, pre-financial-crisis time with a lot of money and a lot of paranoia.